“I think people are starving for innovation, and Wii U is giving them that innovation," Mr. GameStop, the video game retailer, opened 3,000 stores at midnight on Thursday for Black Friday sales, and before long almost all its Wii Us were sold out, according to Tony Bartel, GameStop’s president. Executives are hoping for a holiday hit, and perhaps even another runaway success. Now, the new console, the Wii U, may be Nintendo’s last, best hope for regaining its former glory. Customers lined up in stores for it - and then it simply faded. Miyamoto helped design, attracted new audiences like women and older people. The simplicity of its controller, which Mr. The original Wii, the first wireless, motion-capturing console, was nothing less than revolutionary. 18, when a new version of its Wii game console arrived in stores nationwide. And while game consoles aren’t going away, analysts are skeptical that the business will regain its former stature soon.Īll of which makes Nintendo’s next move, and what is happening here, so crucial. Nintendo recently posted the first loss in its era as a video games company, a prospect that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. Changing tastes and technology have called into question the economics of traditional game consoles, whether from Nintendo or Microsoft, maker of the Xbox. Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja and other inexpensive, downloadable games, particularly for cellphones and tablets, have invaded its turf. Nintendo’s enemies have arrived by battalions. This palace of play is quiet, but there’s trouble brewing in the world around it: three decades after the mustachioed Mario burst into arcades via Donkey Kong, plucking countless quarters from people’s pockets, the kingdom is under siege.
Miyamoto is dreaming his dreams across the Pacific, an army of marketing types is at work here in Redmond, inside the shiny new headquarters of Nintendo of America. All of them, and more, are the pixelated children of Shigeru Miyamoto, the Walt Disney of video games and creative genius of the Nintendo Company of Japan.īut while Mr. TUCKED in the woods here, west of State Route 520, is a little piece of the Mario Kingdom.īehind the unassuming doors is the business built by Mario, the pudgy plumber, and Luigi, his lanky brother, as well as characters like Link, wielder of the mystical Master Sword, and Princess Zelda, of the royal family of Hyrule.
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